Gita no Eiyuu
by Bakageta
Summary: There are some things about mortals that Rukia will never understand. Early series. For Unsane Chibi.


Gita no Eiyuu

Bakageta

Summary: There are some things about mortals that Rukia will never understand. Early series.

See, Unsane Chibi, I told you I'd write it. It just took six months...

* * *

"I still don't see the point of this." Rukia grumbled as she watched Ichigo and Chad.

Both were standing and staring at the television. Their fingers were nearly flying across the scaled down guitars in their hands, from what she'd gathered they were playing some foreign game.

"It's fun once you know how to play." Ichigo said without taking his eyes away from the screen, then he swore as he missed a string of notes. Chad made no comment as he flicked another button on the tiny guitar. All the notes on his side of the screen turned blue.

"What's that?" Rukia asked as she watched Chad's score rise.

"Star power." Chad answered simply.

"That doesn't tell me much…"

"It's a power up." Ichigo added.

"Oh."

Rukia was quiet until the song ended with a frenzy of notes and a flourish of movement from the onscreen characters.

"It doesn't look like it'd be much fun," Rukia remarked to Ichigo as Chad went through the song list, "the songs aren't even in Japanese."

"It's an import, and the songs are all pretty good whether you understand them or not. Most of them are classics." Ichigo said as he adjusted the guitar controller's shoulder strap.

"Why don't you just play your real guitar?"

"It doesn't keep score." Ichigo answered before his attention was taken by the streaming notes on the screen.

They went through another song, and this time Rukia remained quiet. Ichigo won this time, though it had been a close match.

"You look like morons playing that." Rukia was bored and slightly anxious. "There are more constructive things you could be doing." _Like training to fight hollows,_ Rukia finished mentally.

"Why is it always holl-homework with you?" Ichigo asked angrily. "People can't work all the time, they need time to relax."

Rukia knew Ichigo was right, at least this once, she'd seen several shinigami nearly work themselves to death simply because they didn't take time for themselves. Still, she couldn't let Ichigo think he had won the argument.

"This 'Gita no Eiyuu' game doesn't look relaxing." She said. It was a weak come back, and both of them knew it.

"It's Guitar Hero." Ichigo corrected. "Try it."

"Ah, well…" Rukia really couldn't come up with an excuse not to. "I don't want to look as idiotic as you." She finished lamely.

"Just once, if you don't like it we can go study or something."

"Fine." Rukia agreed more out of shock that Ichigo was actually volunteering for training than any real desire to play the game.

"Oi, Chad, Rukia wants to try it, could you let her use your controller?"

"Sure." He said and handed it to her after tightening the shoulder strap.

Rukia slipped the strap over her head and then held it like she'd seen Ichigo and Chad hold it.

"So, what do I do?"

"When two of the same color notes match on the screen you press the matching button and the toggle bar. If there's a line connecting two notes you hold until the second one passes, and if there's two notes matching at the same time you press both. I'm gonna put you on the lowest difficulty, you only have to worry about the first three color buttons." Ichigo said as he changed the settings.

"That's it?" Rukia asked skeptically.

"Oh, if you get star power you can press select to use it or you can jerk the controller up."

Ichigo finished his explanation just as the song he'd selected finished loading.

Rukia trained her eyes on the screen. She fumbled the first few notes either playing them too early or too late but after a few moments she picked up the rhythm of the song. She'd played through almost the whole song before she realized how into the game she had gotten.

"Did you like it?" Ichigo asked as Rukia reluctantly handed Chad's back to him.

"I guess." Rukia said.

"You guess?" Ichigo asked skeptically.

"Yes," Rukia responded stiffly, "I suppose it's good for practicing reaction times, or something."

"You like it." Ichigo said, smirking.

"I do not."

"You do."

"No, I don't."

"Yes, you do."

Rukia glared at Ichigo and there was a rare moment of silence before she spoke again.

"So, can I play the winner?"

Ichigo just continued smirking.


End file.
